It was nearing midnight when I finally reached the town I called home. I had spent the last week on a road trip covering some of the outlining parts of my sales territory. I work for a major multinational drug manufacturer and it was my responsibility to make sure the medical staff in my territory was recommending our brand products over all others. Every six weeks I had to spend a week of nights away from home in order to cover my territory regularly.
My day was spent going from the doctor's office to the doctors office promoting our products and leaving free samples whenever they were accepted while highlighting the qualities that set our brands above the generic. It was a game of averages. One-stop out of six during the day you would be lucky to get to talk directly to a doctor. Most of the time you ended up talking to the head nurse, or the person assigned to deal with people like me.
My wife and I were wanting to pay down our debts before starting a family. I had left on Sunday this week to be on location at the start of the week. Having more than covered the quota for the week when I sent my daily reports this Thursday at 7 pm. I was called and informed by the sales manager of our region to go home and take the extra day off with pay. I had once again excelled in beating quotas for the quarter. Those after regular hours locations were finally getting me noticed.
When I worked areas like this, I worked extra-long hours on the trip by going into those after-hours doctors' units. It may not make much a difference in exposure but when I filled out my daily reports and emailed them it spoke volumes.
I found that by doing that I got to talk directly with more doctors than I did during the regular day. Most of these had quiet times which made it easy to have open and honest discussions with them on a one to one basis. That allowed me to impart knowledge about what was new, why it was better or what to watch for if there were complications with medication being taken with it. It had earned me a lot of respect from the doctors out in the field.
Most field agents like me did not go after this avenue of clients because they saw it as a duplication of what they had already done. I found it the best way to reach the doctors directly. As most of these after-hour operations served a walk-in client. Between four and six was their quiet time. As long as my fellow sales rep met the daily quota of stops, they were happy. My view of things was that if you were constantly doing more than was required on the odd days where you didn't make quota would not be viewed as serious.
Maybe it was the fact that I was the youngest and newest member of the sales team that drove my ambition. On some days I would skip lunch and get a couple more contacts reached. I have to admit that I was a people person and had the gift of gab that seemed to put people at ease when communicating with them.
On a personal note if I had wanted to cheat on my wife there were plenty of opportunities especially when on the road. In every town and location, there was always some young sweet looking thing new to the field for various reasons willing and planning on hitting on those who seemed to have it together better than most. To those who knew me in the field, I was known as the artful dodger because I could always find a way to squeeze out of touchy situations without leaving hurt feelings behind. The key was making them feel respected.
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My mother had cheated on my father regularly when I was going through my teenage years. We three children knew it. We also knew the man's name and reputation. I saw the emotional pain my father had endured for years. On those occasions when I went for a run together with my father he and I talked. He felt trapped and conflicted at the same time. Because of his views about responsibilities concerning his children he was staying in a loveless marriage. I knew that when the time was right he would make his move.
My mother treated my father like dirt. As a result, I had vowed to myself that I would not allow myself to be like my mother. I would not and could not hurt someone deliberately. One night my mother and I had it out. I called her what she was a whore. She said that my father did not have the guts to walk out and leave her because he loved her too much. I told her to be careful because her own words might come back to bite her big time.
Mom learned the hard way just how wrong she was. As soon as the last of his children which was me graduated high school, he got his revenge. They said it was an accident but to this day in my eyes, the facts did not make sense. I still believe because of what happened that his love turned to hate which allowed him to take revenge.
My mother and her long term lover, who was her employer had driven off a cliff after my father had confronted them, demanding that their relationship came to end for good in all ways.
My mother had made the mistake of telling my father that he was not a man and the only reason she had stayed with was because he was such a good provider. Then she told him to his face she was going for a divorce now that their children were grown up.
They had separated and he had just left the marriage home a few days before when it happened. One night before the paperwork for the divorce was to be filed, to my mother and her lover decided they were going to try a new restaurant that had opened up on top of the cliff outside of town. For the elite, it was the place to be.
It was an exclusive restaurant where you had to have reservations to get into. You didn't go for the meal you went to for the experience. Access to the restaurant was tricky because it was on a steep cliff overlooking the Mississippi river so most used GPS to direct them. It appeared that the one in my mom's lover's car was faulty and had given the wrong directions.
They only missed the restaurant by a block and had driven off the cliff in the dark during a storm. The police in their investigation had overlooked the fact that my father wrote code and could have easily found a way to program it to fail.
Her parents and extended family had a big discussion with my Dad on how to proceed with her funeral. He wanted her cremated and nothing more. It had come to a big argument, so he told them all just what her relationship was with the man she died with. They wanted proof so he gave it to them. He provided them all with video. Out of her own mouth she stated just how long their affair had been going on and just what she thought of her husband and her own children.
Let's just say that when they heard the proof coming from her own mouth her side of the family better appreciated my father's point of view.
